How to Find Home

by Mahsuda Snaith

  ‘Of course she’s happy,’ he said.

  It was exactly the right answer.

  I knew he was a good one. We were the same, me and him, even though we seemed so different. Like jigsaw pieces. If jigsaw pieces were all identical then they’d never fit together. That was us, two jigsaw pieces that made no sense on their own but slotted together to make a finished picture.

  Luca took my hand again and we sat there quiet for a bit.

  ‘I’m going to make sure this never happens again,’ he said. ‘I don’t care about myself any more. That was my problem, you see? I’ve never cared about anyone but myself. Except now. Because I care about you.’ He squeezed my hand tight. ‘I’m going to help you, Molly.’

  It was such a sweet thing to say, even though I didn’t believe it. People think they can help you but they let you down. They don’t mean to, but they do. That’s fine. All you’ve got to remember is not to believe them.

  ‘Thank you, Luca. You can call the nurse now.’

  He gave my hand a little shake as though we’d done a deal; then he got up. When the nurse came she pulled the curtain around my bed and asked Luca to wait outside. He looked reluctant but I told him it was OK. Before he left he picked up the plastic package then kissed my hand like he was a gentleman and I was a lady.

  ‘I’ll wait for you, Molly,’ he said. ‘Always.’

  After he’d gone the nurse looked at me as though I was the luckiest girl on earth. It made me wonder if I’d been wrong, if perhaps he’d meant it when he told me he loved me. Then she prodded and poked me, saying I was good for not fussing. I think I was too tired to fuss.

  ‘We have someone to see you,’ she said.

  I thought maybe it was Jules come to berserk at me. Then I thought it was Mother and him. For a moment I thought it might even be Izzy. Instead a tall black man came into the room with a bunch of papers. He was kind of round and soft-looking, like a big teddy bear.

  ‘Hello, Molly,’ he said in this real deep voice, smooth like honey. ‘My name’s Darren and I’m from the Social Services. If you don’t mind I’ve got a few questions.’

  I looked down at the rucksack Luca had left. I could hear Boy breathing.

  ‘Am I in trouble?’ I asked.

  The man smiled but in a kind way; his whole face lit up.

  ‘No, darling. I’m here to help you.’

  Home Again

  If you sit by Nottingham Castle where the tourists stand with maps and baseball caps and eyes that look without seeing, you’ll hear a busker who, when he sings, bleeds his soul. Except you don’t see him any more. I go back there and hope to hear that earthquake voice but the cobbles are always empty, people rushing by, not seeing anything but the narrowness of their own lives.

  I texted Jules to see if she’d heard anything.

  Probs glassing some fucker in the face :-) Jx

  Jules doesn’t live in the squat any more. She moved in to a flat near her mum in Bestwood so she could be close to the hospital. Her mammogram found that the lump was benign but they want to keep monitoring her. She says the breast cancer support has been amazing, far better than the mental health care, which seems to get less and less funding every year.

  ‘Sickness is sickness as far as I’m concerned, Molls,’ she told me. ‘People forget the mind is part of the body too; it’s all connected.’

  She calls me every so often to give me these words of wisdom as well as the latest gossip: how Big Tony got a job in a gaming shop and has been made assistant manager, how Private Pete has gone a month without contracting any diseases (because she lets him shower in her flat once a week), how Rusby got his Slovakian bird pregnant and is bunked up with her somewhere near York. Sometimes when she’s speaking, I hear Polish in the background.

  Everything changed for me the day I woke up in hospital. After the social worker left I kept thinking about all the help. So much of it. The doctors and nurses, the social worker and Luca. I’d never had so much help. I didn’t know what to do with it.

  I’d planned to tell the social worker I was fine, to make up some lie about how nearly drowning was an accident and that I had a place to live and I didn’t need anything. But the words didn’t come out. He kept talking to me in his honey-glow voice about programmes available and how I didn’t have to do anything alone if I didn’t want to, and the lies crumbled in my mind.

  Fuck it, I thought. What’s the point of humanity if no one helps anyone? What’s the point of humanity if no one’s brave enough to take the help? You can say what you want about people, but we all have this thing inside us. We care about others, whether we want to or not.

  So I took the help. Both Luca’s and his. And now I’m in shared housing, which is good some days, bad others, depending on who you’re sharing with. I’m getting qualifications in basic English and Maths, which means I can then get one in Social Care. My supporting officer thinks I’d be really good in a care role, if people are willing to look past my shoplifting record. Which, it turns out, some people are. I’m even on some meds to help with all the things I see. I wasn’t sure about them at first – seeing things had helped me through some tough times – but it turns out I had something better than the hallucinations. Imagination. No meds can take that away from me. It’s what makes me human.

  It’s still hard, of course, what with all the government cuts. You can see the stress wrinkles of the people who work in the housing associations and homeless shelters. They barely have enough to live on themselves let alone help me, but it makes me all the more grateful when they do.

  Luca comes to see me at the shelter sometimes and we go on walks together, sitting in parks and cafés. He’s been busy himself, of course. The day after I nearly drowned he was all over the news.

  MAN ALMOST LOSES ARMSTRONG FORTUNE WHEN SWEPT OUT TO SEA

  Someone who worked on the pier had filmed the whole thing and, before you knew it, Luca was an internet sensation. A news crew came to interview him as he held up the Louis Armstrong memorabilia. He hardly said a word, eyes darting about as the reporter stuck a microphone under his chin.

  He hasn’t decided what to do with the Armstrong items. Jules said he was bonkers for not putting them on eBay straight away; the bidding would have gone mental. But it was never about the money, not for Luca.

  Besides, he’s doing well without all of that. He’s been taking his medication and he has his own studio flat where he lives with Boy. It’s been good for him, taking care of another being, even when that being only needs food, water and a couple of walks a day (which, for Luca, is probably the maximum he could cope with). He’s been studying part-time on a computer science programme and working part-time on an IT helpdesk. Turns out Luca’s quite good with computers. They make logical sense, he tells me, unlike people.

  ‘That’s a good thing though,’ I said. ‘Life would be boring if everything was logical.’

  He looked at me, shaking his head.

  ‘You’re always thinking from another angle, Molly,’ he said with a grin. ‘That’s why you’re on my team.’

  We talk a lot, me and Luca. About the future, but also about the past. It’s good to let someone know about the things that have happened, even if they can’t be changed. It’s the secrets that gnaw away at you.

  The first day I got back to Nottingham I went to see Robin Hood at the sandwich giveaway. He was in the middle of bollocking some poor sod for throwing his carton by the side of the bin but he stopped when he saw me, big grin across his face. He was all questions: where I’d been, how I was. He said I looked well, but I could tell he knew I’d been through something deep and troubling. He placed his hand on my arm.

  ‘It’s good to have you home,’ he said.

  I welled up. All this time I’d thought home was something beyond me, kept far away in a room with sofas and fireplaces. But home wasn’t a semi-detached house in the suburbs. It wasn’t a nook under a bridge, or an abandoned community centre or a derelict Manor Cottage.

&nbs
p; Home was the place you felt safe. Home was the place you were respected. Home was the place you were loved. And right then, home was outside the Tourist Information with Robin Hood.

  They’ve become great mates, Robin Hood and Luca. They have long discussions about economics and whether the human race is doomed. Sometimes, when we’re chatting, Martin looks at me all wistful and I know he’s thinking of his girl. I know he’s thinking of how much I look like her and how, in a funny way, I’m carrying on the life she never had. I don’t mind being a second daughter to him any more. Anyone would be real lucky to have a dad like Robin Hood.

  I was one year clear of drugs the other day. I didn’t want to make a fuss about it but I thought I’d celebrate by going to the castle. I’m a proper Nottingham resident with a Citycard now so I can get in for free. What I like to do best is walk the castle grounds. It’s not actually a castle any more, that part was demolished hundreds of years ago, but inside there are still some of the tapestries, potteries and paintings. It used to make my blood bubble, knowing someone had lived in such luxury as the poor rotted in the dungeons below and their families starved in the nearby slums. But then I read an information board about how a mansion was on the castle mound and how that mansion was burnt down by rioters when the residing duke opposed the Representation of the People Act. It made me feel there was some justice in the world when I read that.

  If I was a duke, I would dress like the peasants and open all my rooms for them to live in. I’d smash all the fine china and pull down the chandeliers, handing out pieces of crystal to the cleaners and cooks before declaring Nottingham an independent state. There would be no rich or poor, only an exchange of goods and skills. No one would starve and everyone would have a home.

  I carried on walking, imagining my rebel paradise, until I reached a huge oak, branches spanning over me like temple arches. Then I heard a voice singing over the wall. I froze, then ran to look over the edge. I could see the back of the Robin Hood statue, arrow pulled back ready to shoot, but I couldn’t get a good enough angle to see beyond so I ran right down to the gates and out on to the streets. That’s when I saw him in the same old spot, guitar strapped around his body, bleeding his soul all over the cobbles. I was so happy to see the busker that I nearly stumbled to the ground. He looked different somehow, with a new flat cap and neatly trimmed beard. Instead of the old parka he had a thick tweed jacket, and, when I looked at his face, I saw the fierceness that usually creased his features had softened. But the song was still electric, bolting through my nerves, striking me dead centre. Everyone was walking straight by like he was another invisible nobody on the streets. They were more interested in ghosts, kings and queens in castles than a person made of flesh and blood.

  I went and stood right in front of the busker. If you do this, sometimes it forms a crowd, and I felt that today the busker deserved a crowd. But I guess the people were still not ready to see him – the pain of him, the anger as he pounded away at the guitar – because no one joined me. He had his eyes closed and was so deep in the song he was singing that, when he opened them again, he looked shocked to see me. Maybe no one had stopped and listened to him for a while. Maybe he recognized me from all those other times I’d sat on the bench as he played. Or maybe it was because I was crying. I couldn’t help it; his singing always got me that way.

  He looked embarrassed and fiddled with his strings. I opened my mouth to tell him to carry on. But then he began playing again and, when he played, it was a different type of music altogether. It was springy, light and made my muscles relax like foam into water. And when he sang it was with a gentle, smooth voice you’d have never believed could have come out of him.

  It was like he was singing just for me, about the past and how he couldn’t run from it, and the darkness and how it drowned him. Then the beat got quicker and he was telling me how he came home after a long time and how the sun was shining, his heart racing because at last he was happy.

  He’d read my life and was singing it back to me. It made me shine from the inside out. When he got to the chorus he was bouncing his foot, telling me to keep my head up, to keep my heart strong. People stood next to me. They could see him now. They weren’t scared any more. It must have been a popular song because some of them were singing to the chorus. Then they began throwing coins into his guitar case; that’s how unafraid they were.

  I was so happy. I don’t know if it was because the busker was being seen and heard for the first time, or because life was finally going somewhere for me, or because of the beauty of the song itself, but I felt a pure, golden joy. I bounced up and down to the music and the people bounced along with me, though maybe not quite as high. There was a big crowd now and I was in the middle of it, dancing and swaying, jumping and pirouetting as the busker sang and played. It was like we were in the middle of a carnival right there at the front of Nottingham Castle.

  I only realized he’d finished when the crowd applauded. The noise of a thousand pigeons beating their wings thundered down the street, feathers showering us like confetti. I didn’t see it; I felt it. Then when I stood still – heart pounding, face grinning so wide it hurt – I saw the busker shoving his guitar into his case and closing it as people tried to put money in. When someone asked if he needed help, he snarled.

  The crowd spread out like beads rolling across a slippery floor. I thought I should go too but then the busker looked at me.

  He nodded.

  I nodded back.

  We saw each other, flesh and blood, and in that there was something beautiful.

  Acknowledgements

  A book like this couldn’t be written without a lot of research and the help of many organizations. I’d like to thank Pedestrian and Writing East Midlands for giving me the opportunity to work as a writer-in-residence in Kennedy House Homeless Hostel and, in particular, Ellene, who showed up every week and was so generous in telling me her story. I’d also like to thank New Futures Leicester, a great organization that works with women and men engaged in sex work, with little funding and a lot of love, and also The Bridge, who provide free food for the homeless and allowed me to volunteer for them. Also, I’d like to thank the people I spoke to who have been or are currently homeless: your insights were fundamental in the writing of this novel.

  There were some great programmes and books that helped me, in a compassionate and informative way, to understand the whole topic of homelessness and sex work, namely Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters, The Sex Myth: Why Everything We’re Told is Wrong by Dr Brooke Magnanti, Love for Sale with Rupert Everett (Channel 4) and On the Streets (BBC Four). My biggest thanks have to go to the miniseries Five Daughters (BBC One), which opened my eyes to the lives of the homeless and of sex workers in such a powerful, beautiful way that it inspired me to write this novel. Art really can change people’s lives.

  Also, big thanks to my agent, James Wills, and editor, Lizzy Goudsmit, who have backed this idea since I first put it forward and helped me shape it into something wonderful. Your support, sage advice and quick reading have been invaluable. And to Tom Hill, who I think is the most organized publicist ever made.

  And also, as always, big thanks to my loving friends and family; particularly Laura Aston, Katie Snaith, Farhana Shaikh, Judith, Ian and Iqra.

  Oh, and of course John, who is still awesome.

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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  Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Doubleday

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Mahsuda Snaith 2019

  Cover Design by Jo Thomson/TW

  Mahsuda Snaith has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the
case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781473543072

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